'A place for everything and everything in its place'

Over the past several months, I have been getting ready to move. And as I've packed up my life, I've realized every object has a story, whether that be who designed it, where it was bought, where it has been or how it has been used and by whom. This story gives the object more importance. It gave me a reason to keep it or chuck it.

Yet even if you're not moving, you should all be editing your objects. Don't think about it too hard about it. If you love something, keep it. If not, repurpose it, whether that be putting it in storage or donating it to charity. After all, one person's junk is another person's treasure.

If you have many pieces of one collection, (my weakness being cake plates), put them together instead of spread everywhere. Show them off as one. Or repurpose them take sea shells from past vacations and put them in a glass vase or crystal bowl lined with a handful of sand.

A sneak peek into this year's Home & Garden Show

If you could grow healthy lettuce with the same protein value as steak, would you? After all, according to Steve Solomon, author of The Intelligent Gardener, it's possible to grow lettuce with 20 per cent protein simply by mineralizing your soil.

Solomon mocks garden writers, myself included. He says, in a long and thorough way, most of us do not replace the minerals in the soil at the same ratio we take them out when we harvest plants.

So I decided to test my soil recently, and I got some bad news.

My problem is I am afraid to pollute the soil with excess fertilizers, so I add only natural ingredients like compost and worm castings. Solomon, who used to be an organic farmer, says compost is not enough. The soil system is broken and compost alone will not put our humpty dumpty soil together again.

Inner-city homeowners look up, not out

Good things come in threes – or so goes the superstition.

Calgary's homebuilding industry seems to have taken this to heart, with three-storey infill homes emerging as a solution to what experts say is growing demand for "vertical" detached living options in inner-city communities.

"It is very cost effective to build up versus build out," said Ron Butler, president of New West Luxury Estate Homes, which builds about 10 infills per year. "And building out is not an option given the limits of the lot."

The City of Calgary currently limits the amount of land a home can occupy in a given lot, ranging from 40 to 50 per cent, depending on its zoning and size. Three-story homes provide a solution to providing additional living space where that ratio is already being tested, said Butler.

Construction falls by $135 million

Alberta homebuilders were a little more cautious in January, as new housing construction fell by $135 million in January compared to the same month last year, according to Statistics Canada.

By percentage, Alberta's 16 per cent decline placed it around the middle when compared to other provinces (spending in Saskatchewan fell by 31 per cent). Based on dollar figures, however, the provincial decline was tops in the country.

Nationally, spending on new residential building construction totalled $3.9 billion in December, up 4.8 per cent from the same month a year earlier.

Behind-the-scene details of how communities in Calgary come to life

For casual observers, it might appear that new neighbourhoods just sprout from the ground overnight.

In fact, those first show homes only come after years of planning and negotiation.

"When people see the graders out there, people think that's the start of a community, but it starts long before," said Brookfield Residential senior manager of strategic initiatives Grace Lui.

In the case of Brookfield's up-and-coming Livingston development in north Calgary, for example, grading might have started this year, but land acquisition took place 15 years ago. The new community, which will be comprised of 10,000 homes on 514 hectares of land just north of Stoney Trail, will welcome its first show homes in 2017.

Homeowners to benefit from redevelopment, says company behind initiative

An ambitious multi-year plan to breathe new life into Deerfoot Mall in north Calgary stands to benefit nearby homeowners in a big way, says the company behind the massive redevelopment.

In early 2016, Vancouver-based Shape Properties announced it would be transforming the decades-old property at Deerfoot Trail and 64th Avenue N.E. from a traditional closed mall into a state-of-the-art open shopping centre dubbed Deerfoot City, complete with everything from a restaurant campus to style district.

"For local property owners, Deerfoot City is nothing but a good story," said Shape Properties executive vice-president Darren Kwiatkowski, whose company purchased the site from Ivanhoe Cambridge in 2011 for a reported $78 million.

Home + Garden Show returns to Stampede grounds Feb. 25-28

Change your world, one cabbage at a time: That's how Calgary gardening guru Donna Balzer wants to inspire folks at this year's Calgary Home + Garden Show, which runs Feb. 25 to 28.

"I'll help people understand why it's so important for us to take control of our own food," said Balzer, a CREB®Now regular columnist who will be among dozens of featured presenters at the four-day event, which is expected to attract more than 60,000 visitors this year.

"I want people to realize they can have an impact and help them discover how they can do it."

New Public Interest Law Clinic to challenge landlord-tenant law in Alberta

As a child, Sophie Purnell lived in Burundi before her family fled due to the country's increasing violence.

Now, as a third-year law student at the University of Calgary, she is hoping to make life better for others by working with a group of students to change landlord-tenant law in Alberta, one issue at a time.

The students — all second- and third-year law students — are taking a new course offered through the school's new Public Interest Law Clinic. Supervised by university professors, as well as local public interest lawyers, the students will take on cases from the clinic that fall under the public interest banner as part of their course load.

This term, students will be learning about residential tenancy law, human rights and potential constitutional challenges in the way tenants are treated.

City leads country in sales, price declines: report

Canada's resale residential housing markets illustrated further signs of regional disparities in January, with sales and prices up in hot markets such as Toronto and B.C.'s Lower Mainland yet down in others such as Calgary and Edmonton, according to a new report from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).

Sales in Calgary last month fell by 14 per cent to 1,049 units, representing the sharpest year-over-year decline among all major urban centres in Canada. Edmonton also saw a sharp 9.7 per cent decrease in the number of sales to 777 units.

In contrast, Greater Vancouver saw sales pick up by 30.3 per cent to 2,626 units and Greater Toronto Area (GTA) by 7.3 per cent to 4,672.

Commercial market outside the core still active

Calgary's suburban commercial market is bucking the trend and chugging along in the face of Alberta's current economic downturn, say industry experts.

"The perception is that all commercial real estate is facing challenging times, but the reality is our industrial market and our suburban office market and our retail market are very resilient," said Colliers International managing director and broker Joe Binfet.

"And, while I wouldn't say robust, I would say active."